Themes: Nightmare Vacations, Serial Killers, Stranded
Main Cast: Bill Paxton, Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Brittany Daniel, Jordan Ladd, Lindsay Price
Release Year: 2004
Country: US
Run Time: 103 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Following up their breakthrough film, 2001's Super Troopers, the Broken Lizard comedy troupe, comprised of Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske, took aim at the horror genre and delivered Club Dread. Starring the five members of the troupe along with Bill Paxton, the film is set at an anything-goes tropical resort for swingers. When a psychotic killer starts offing the guests with a razor sharp machete, it's up to the staff to hide the carnage, lest they lose the business of the unsuspecting surviving guests. As with Super Troopers and the first Broken Lizard film Puddle Cruiser, Chandrasekhar directs. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Review
Occupying a strange, near superfluous celluloid limbo somewhere between Club Paradise (1986) and Friday the 13th (1980), Broken Lizard's Club Dread does offer some moments of inspired insanity despite the filmmakers' failure to even out the script and pacing problems that plagued the group's breakthrough comedy Super Troopers. The laughs certainly flow more frequently here, but perhaps as a result, they seem so diluted that they lose the unhinged punchiness that made the best moments of Super Troopers so hilarious. Though it does sustain the loose, easygoing aesthetic of the aforementioned sleeper hit, the comedy troupe's third feature (counting their little-seen first outing Puddle Cruiser) also suffers by aiming at a target that's already been fired upon a few too many times; it certainly would have been more effective had it been released among such early '80s slasher parodies as Student Bodies (1981) and Pandemonium (1982). Delayed reaction arguments aside, Club Dread does -- when all is said and done -- mirror the stalk-and-slash efforts of yesteryear down to the most minute details, and the supernaturally-charged killer of Club Dread is on-target for the genre even if the film itself does come a few decades too late. It's obvious from many of the ideas here that Broken Lizard is truly a creative and inspired bunch (a few inventive kills even offer some unexpectedly tense moments); it just would have been nice to see them set their undeniably able sights on a cinematic trend that hadn't already been so well-tread. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
M.C. Gainey - Hank; Michael Weaver - Roy; Nat Faxon - Manny; Samm Levine - Dirk; Dan Montgomery - Rolo; Elena Lyons - Stacy; Tanja Reichert - Kellie; Tony Amendola; Richard Perello - Cliff; Julio Bekhor - Carlos; Michael Yurchak - Burke; Greg Cipes - Trevor; Ryan Faulkner - Marcel; Veronica Segura - Zoe
Credit
Theresa Wachter - Art Director, John Papsidera - Casting, Conrad Hool - Co-producer, Melissa Bruning - Costume Designer, Fernando Altschul - First Assistant Director, Jay Chandrasekhar - Director, Lance Hool - Second Unit Director, Ernie F. Orsatti - Second Unit Director, Ryan Folsey - Editor, Lance Hool - Executive Producer, Peter E. Lengyel - Executive Producer, Nathan Barr - Composer (Music Score), Christopher Covert - Musical Direction/Supervision, Ben Conable - Production Designer, Lawrence Sher - Cinematographer, Richard Perello - Producer, David Alvarez - Sound/Sound Designer, Jay Chandrasekhar - Screenwriter, Kevin Heffernan - Screenwriter, Steve Lemme - Screenwriter, Paul Soter - Screenwriter, Erik Stolhanske - Screenwriter, Broken Lizard - Screenwriter, Leo Napolitano - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Robert Barocci - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Melo Hinojosa - Set Decorator
Club Dread follows a familiar plot that stems from the novel And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. In the movie, Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton) is a has-been rock star who runs a non-stop party on his private island. Dead bodies begin to turn up, and the staff tries to solve the murder mystery without any of the guests learning of the murders. The staff members each have to try to avoid becoming the next victim, as the killer can only be one of them. One by one, they fall prey to the murder. But who is the killer on coconut island? That's for the staff to find out, one way or the other.
Soundtrack
On one of the disc's commentary tracks the filmmakers state that they screened the film for Jimmy Buffett, who was so amused that he requested permission to sing some of the film's songs on one of his live tours.
Alternate version
In 2005 an unrated edition was released to DVD. This version of the film contains an additional 15 minutes of footage for a 118-minute running time. It features several extended scenes, and also restores a subplot involving two cops (played by Paco Mauri and Tony Amendola) that was absent in the theatrical edition. Director Jay Chandrasekhar states in one of the disc's commentary tracks that the original R-rated version is still the director's cut.
Critical reception
Club Dread has received mixed reviews, scoring 45% on review aggregator site Metacritic based on 28 critics reviews, and 31% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 95 reviews. According to Rotten Tomatoes the overall consensus was "Comedy is too hit-or-miss in this slasher spoof".
